Miss Allys Rhett stood upon the clubhouse lawn, a vision in filmy white, smiling her softest, most enchanting smile. There was a reason for the smile—a reason strictly feminine, yet doubly masculine. She had walked down the steps that led from the piazza betwixt Rich Hilary and Jack Adair, the catches of the season, in full view of the Hammond girl, who was left to waste her sweetness upon prosy old Van Ammerer.
The Hammond girl had been rather nasty all summer—she was, moreover, well known to be in hot pursuit of Rich Hilary. Until Allys came on the scene it had seemed the pursuit must be successful. They had gone abroad on the same steamer the year before, dawdled through a London season, and come home simultaneously—he rather bored and languid, she of a demure and downcast, but withal possessive, air. She had said they were not engaged—“oh, dear no, only excellent friends,” but looking all the while a contradiction of the words. Then unwisely she had taken Hilary to that tiresome tea for the little Rhett girl—and behold! the mischief was done.
The little Rhett girl was not little; instead, she was divinely tall, and lithe as a young ash. No child, either. What with inclination and mother-wisdom, her coming out had waited for her to find herself. At nineteen she had found herself—a woman, well poised and charming as she was beautiful. Notwithstanding Hilary had not instantly surrendered—horse, foot and dragoons. Rather he had held out for terms—the full honors of war, as became a man rising thirty, and prospective heir to more millions than he well knew what to do with.
Two or three of the millions had taken shape in the Bay Park, the newest and finest of metropolitan courses. Hilary’s father, a power alike on the turf and in the street, had built it, and controlled it absolutely—of course through the figment of an obedient jockey club. A trace of sentiment, conjoined to a deal of pride, had made him revive an old-time stake—the Far and Near. It dated back to that limbo of racing things—“before the war.” Banker Hilary’s grandfather, a leader among gentlemen horsemen of that good day, had been of those who instituted it—a fact upon which no turf scribe had failed to dilate when telling the glories of the course. The event was, of course, set down a classic—as well it might be, all things considered. The founders had framed it so liberally as to admit the best in training—hence the name. The refounders made conditions something narrower, but offset that by quadrupling the value.
This was Far and Near day—with a record crowd, and hot, bright summer weather. The track was well known to be lightning fast, and the entry list was so big and puzzling that the Far and Near might well prove anybody’s race. There were favorites, of course, also rank outsiders. One heard their names everywhere in the massed throng that had overflowed the big stand, the lawn, the free field, and broken in human waves upon the green velvet of the infield. This by President Hilary’s own order. He had come to the track early, and looked to everything—with a result that there was no trouble anywhere.
The crowd had been gayly demonstrative through the first two races. It had watched the third in tense silence—except that moiety of it ebbing and flowing through the clubhouse. It was the silence of edged patience. Albeit the early races were fair betting propositions, the most of those who watched them had come to lay wagers on some Far and Near candidate—and the Far and Near candidates had been getting their preliminaries.
They numbered just nineteen. Seventeen had been out when Allys and her squires stopped under the shade of a tree. Notwithstanding the shadow, she put up her white parasol, tilting it at just the angle to make it throw her head and shoulders in high relief. Adair glanced at her, caught a hard breath, nipped it, then looked steadily down the course a minute.
Hilary smiled—a smile that got no further than the corners of his red lips—his eyes, indeed, gloomed the more for it—then turned upon Allys with: “Pick the winner for us, won’t you? You are so delightful feminine you know nothing of horses, therefore ought to bring us luck. Say, now, what shall we back?”
“It depends,” Allys said, twirling her parasol ever so lightly. “Do you want to lose? Or do you really care to win?”
“To win, please, O oracle, if it’s all the same to you,” Hilary said, supplication in his voice, although his eyes danced.